PENnED

Category: Reflections on Scriptures

  • Turning Black Friday into Bright Friday

    Read: Psalm 42:1-11  5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?     Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God,     for I will yet praise him,     my Savior and my God. I know what it means to be downcast on Black Friday (BF). Let me re-tell the story that I told an…

  • Who you praise is who you please

    November 22, 2011 Read: Psalm 107:31-43 31 Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love     and his wonderful deeds for mankind.  32 Let them exalt him in the assembly of the people     and praise him in the council of the elders. The purpose of worship is for God’s people to…

  • Love your job?

    November 21, 2011 Read: Exodus 31:1-5 1 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— 4 to make artistic…

  • We are not crusaders, we are peacemakers

    November 20, 2011 Read: Matthew 5:9,38-48 9 Blessed are the peacemakers,     for they will be called children of God. This part of The Beatitudes can easily be misunderstood in a certain way: that anyone who makes peace regardless of faith or despite the lack of it becomes and should be called a…

  • Does your life say ‘Thank you’?

    Read: Romans 5:12-19 12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned….  15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more…

  • A whale of a stinking-belly-of-a-huge-fish experience

    November 19, 2011 Read: Jonah 1 17 Now the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Kids love this story. Adults quarrel over whether or not the “huge fish” and Jonah’s experience in its belly was real.…

  • Got idols?

    November 18, 2011 Read: Acts 17:19-31 “God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.” What did God do so that people…

  • Do you do it “My Way”?

    Frank said, “I hate the song.” November 17, 2011 Read: Matthew 4:18-22  19“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” That seems clear. But some people have come to Jesus not to follow him or to fish for people. They have come to Jesus because some preacher…

  • Real or Fake?

    November 16, 2011 Read: 1 John 2:18-27 24 As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us—eternal life. There was a young man who attended my…

  • Got solid food?

    November 15, 2011 Read: Hebrews 5:12–6:2 You need milk, not solid food! These are some offensive words to people who are supposed to be spiritual adults but in reality are still infants. With some people, I feel that my efforts have been in vain. But this passage brings me some comfort…